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When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries.

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Possible
Superior
Individual
Superiors
Coalesce
Best
Effective
Biographical
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Dictionaries
Intellect
Psychopathic
Genius
Bipolar
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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
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The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
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The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals.
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What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
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Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight.
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
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Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
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The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.
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How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
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What a teacher needs to know about psychology might almost be written on the palm of one's hand.
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
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It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.
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Science can tell us what exists but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
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